Tales from Section 12 & Beyond

Recently we were at a local comicbook show where we reconnected with Len Mihalovich, a comicbook writer/creator who penned several stories for various titles for Mythic Comics & Entertainment Group. These days he helms his own publishing corner of the Indieverse with Lenovations Press, and we not only caught up on old times, but we also picked up three of his comics at the show; Avenger New Blood #1, Fantastic Fan Boys Adventures #1, and Section 12 Antarctic Special #1 Search for Tomorrow with Tomorrow Girl.

Section 12 was created by Len Mihalovich in 1994 and published first by Dilemma Productions as part of an anthology and then in its own series from Mythic Comics. 

Avenger New Blood resurrects the legacy of the Golden Age (formerly Magazine Entertainment, now Public Domain) character, Avenger. In the first story of the issue, we meet wealthy scientist Roger Wright who became the superhero Avenger to retaliate against the Soviet agents who tortured and killed his brother. While the Avenger had no powers, he does have his own inventions on which to fall back, most notably his VTOL aircraft, Starjet and Dissolver pistol. The Avenger also possessed a utility belt containing items for almost any occasion. The first tale is from the past where Avenger and his (not sidekick, but personal filmographer) Martin “Booker Roberts, but we, for the purpose of this story are focused on Avengers granddaughter, Erica, who, though a criminal, is apparently being recruited to be the New Avenger, hence the “new Blood” aspect of the story..

Fantastic Fan Boys Adventures is about four young friends who join forces to fight evil with the greatest weapon of all, their imaginations and the comics they create to fight crime, and all before dinner. That’s the premise of this comic. As comic fans seem to have a knack for diving deep into the worlds they adore, dissecting characters and stories to apply real-world logic to comic-book science. These four friends not only create characters and scenarios, but then, once the talk has been played out, the other members do their best to dissect the tale as presented. In this issue, we discover the Fanboys’ origin stories, meet our newest hero, the Living Rocket, and witness the return of Track Suit Man. All told, it’s a wonderful comic full of adventures you’ll want to read.

The third book we scored from Len was Section 12 Antarctic Special which kicks off a three-issue miniseries with Antarctic Press and brings Ben Dunn’s character Tomorrow Girl into Lenovations Section 12 series of comics. According to a statement from Lenovations Press, “We are thrilled to unveil our first ever mini-series that brings together two comic book universes.” This collaboration has Tomorrow Girl — a fan-favorite character from Antarctic Press — teaming up with Lenovations’ super-team, Section 12.

Created by Ben Dunn, Tomorrow Girl first appeared in Antarctic Press’ Ninja High School V2 #1 as part of the Tomorrow Man family and the Ninja High School universe. Tomorrow Girl (Heidi) is 16 years old and attends Quagmire High School. Section 12 follows a top-secret government project employing super-powered individuals to contain scientific failures. With this three-issue crossover, Tomorrow Girl (in her own universe) goes up against a robot operated by a Professor Von Zoot, and gets tossed out of her own universe and into Section 12’s.

The fun part of this crossover is partly from the fact that in her own book, she is rendered in a very cartoony style, however, while in Section 12’s, she is depicted in a more realistic image. Unfortunately for her, once the universe shift, occurs, one of the monstrous, killer robots follows her into Section 12’s world and continues to weak havoc. Once she stops the robot, she is interviewed by a less than reputable reporter who casts Tomorrow Girl as a rogue alien who came here to attack the citizens of Earth. Fortunately, members of Section 12 see the broadcast and already know that the reporter is more interested in scandalous reporting than facts, and vow to track down Tomorrow Girl and resuscitate her heroic nature.

These books are  not only all ages, but pure fun, and (for us at the very least) harken back to an era of the entertaining comics of our youth which were there for the fun read, and not over-dubbed with any sort of agenda save that of heroes helping regular folks. 

There be Wülves out there

I’m very happy to announce that my comicbook, Wülf Girlz has been published by Dark Fire Press. This comic was some 18 years and four publishers in development. Now that it is finally in print, I’m honestly over the moon. (No pun intended.)

Back in 2006 I was invited to contribute a short horror story to a brand-new comicbook anthology. The writing prompt was to pen a 21^st century horror story that frightened me. The story I chose to write involved child abduction and abuse. This was because, at the time, my children were young, and I had experienced an incident some years earlier where my then three-year-old daughter wandered off in a crowded mall following her mother to the bathroom (without her mother or I knowing it).

This incident was literally the scariest five minutes of my life. All I could think at the moment was that I was going to have to explain to my mother how I lost her granddaughter. I was saved that moment, as my daughter had managed to successfully make her way across the crowded food court and connect with her mother. Because this was at a time before we had cellphones, there was no way her mother could notify me she was safe.

Needless to say, that incident was a large part of the inspiration for the creation of the characters who would come to be called the Wülf Girlz. My first publisher ran the first two installments of the origin tale (in B&W) with most-excellent art by Matt C. Ryan. While I was waiting for my publisher to release the third chapter, I was invited, in 2016, to bring the Girlz and contribute to a prose anthology, teaming them up with another writer’s character.

The concept of the anthology, MetaHumans vs The UltimateEvil, (Lion’s Share Press) was that several writers would team their characters up with Sean N. Koury’s character, The Bounty Hunter, and then each team would face off against some sort of evil entity. Happy to see the Girlz in print again, I agreed and had The Girlz meet up with Bounty Hunter in a short story entitled Northern Lite.

I eventually wound up splitting with my first publisher in 2019 and hooking up with InDELLible Comics. In 2020 The third chapter of their origin story appeared, this time in color with amazing art by Rick Lundeen in InDELLible’s House in Spades #1. The girlz also briefly appeared in 2021 in Popular Comics #5 in a story I wrote entitled Save the Children, which featured the Golden Age Owl Girl in the lead.

It was shortly after that that I negotiated a publishing deal with J.M. DeSantis to bring The Wülf Girlz to J.M.’s company Dark Fire Press. Unfortunately, after all the arrangements were made, COVID hit, and everything wound up on the back burner as we were all tossed into lockdown (and then recovery). Well, fortunately, as it turns out, you simply can’t keep a good comicbook concept down, and in July ’24, we finally achieved print copies of Wülf Girlz #1, with all three chapters now in color, as well as two short pieces — also by Rick — all collected in the issue. The first show I brought them to was the July CollectiCon in Montville, CT, which is where I sold my first copies.

Well, in addition to having my comic being listed on Dark Fire’s web page, and announced in Dark Fire ads, the comic is now available at both GlobalComix and IndyPlanet as both digital and Print on Demand (PoD) versions. Naturally enough, you can also purchase copies direct from me whenever I appear at comic and book shows.

So, what’s next you ask? Well, there is a novella of mine featuring the Girlz which is slated to come out in the early part of 2025. The novella carries an introduction by a well-known horror writer and illustrator (I’ll tell you more about him at a later date — I’ve got to save something for a surprise).  Meanwhile I’m currently working on other projects, including bringing another one of my intellectual properties back into print (yes, also with Dark Fire — when you find a good publisher, you stick with them!)

That’s all for now, kids, as I pen this we have just passed Christmas, and am right in the heart of Chanukah and Kwanzaa, and heading for my daughter’s birthday, and New Year’s Eve. So stay safe, enjoy yourselves, and we’ll see all’y’all next year!

Write what you know: Joe Martino’s The Mighty Titan

Here is yet another older article of mine that appeared some years back on another web page with which I am no longer associated. It has been my intention to bring that older work here, and with this article I have now brought over all the articles from that other site.

As writers, we are told to “write what you know.” Which is a pretty nifty trick when you consider that we — as funnybook writers — write about green-hued monsters, men from other planets who can fly, billionaires wrapped in Iron, ageless mutants with razor-sharp claws, brilliant scientists with the proportionate strength of an arachnid, and yes, even pre-teen girls who morph into killer werewülves. Yeah, like we know a whole bunch about all that, eh? Well, the sad truth is that while we don’t really know so much (or as much as we would like) about having powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, we do each know quite a bit about the everyday ordinariness of our own lives.

Well, taking this lesson to heart, writer, artist, and publisher Joe Martino determined to write about the one thing he perhaps (and unfortunately) knew best. Joe, as it turns out, he had cancer — twice. That’s the bad news; the good news is that he beat it both times it showed up in his body, but at a very terrible cost. Cancer, you see, not only cost Martino his peace of mind as well as a couple of sections of his kidney, but his first marriage as well. Needless to say, there were quite a few very dark days for Martino during that terrible time. Still — to corrupt a cliché — the thing that did not kill him actually helped make him a much stronger writer.

Martino found a way to turn his personal journey through the Hell of cancer into his teen-aged passion for comicbook superheroes. As a teen he discovered the joy of comics and as an adult he turned that escapist entertainment into a way to work his way through his own pain. His first couple of forays into comics took the forms of a hero that tread the ground between this world and the next (Ripperman), and a traditional superhero replete with powers from an alien race (Shadowflame), both of which were published by Arcana. From there, Martino determined that he wanted to continue producing comics, but decided that he wanted to publish them himself and created JGM Comics, which became the home of his latest creation, The Mighty Titan.

Starting in April 2013 Martino formed a publishing partnership with publisher, Dave Ryan and brought his creations to Red Anvil Comics.

The Mighty Titan is a typical superhero cut from the same cloth as are the best of costumed heroes. He is the pinnacle of the pantheon of those heroes, like Philip Wylie’s Gladiator, or Henry W. Ralston and John L. Nanovic’s Doc Savage. Titan though, is replete with powers and abilities akin to those of Superman, the regal presence of Thor, along with the magic of Captain Marvel. Then, so as not to overuse the Metro New York locale, Martino determined to cast his hero in a different zip code, and he had his hero call Chi-Town his home. That’s right, even though Martino is a New Jersey native he felt that Manhattan had enough heroes protecting it, so, Chicago became Titan’s kind of town. Just as every good hero needs his own major nemesis, Titan finds himself clashing over and over again with Trenchmouth, an evil ex-Nazi scientist. During one particular battle, however, Titan realizes he doesn’t quite feel like himself, which is where our story begins.

Still, while all of the previous paragraph sounds pretty much like every other hero you’ve ever seen, Martino’s story veers off from the beaten path of “traditional” superheroes (or “Superiors” as Martino has come to call the enhanced heroes in his universe of characters). According to Martino, his newest creation is a superhero concept with a unique twist that brings his own story into focus — Titan, you see, also has cancer. “The story essentially takes the experience I personally went through with cancer and wraps them up in a superhero shell,” Martino tells us. This then becomes the “write what you know” part of Martino’s work; given that Martino himself has survived cancer (again, not once, but twice — causing some of his friends to think of him as some sort of mutant himself) he felt it important to write that into the story, in order to “survive” it again. “This isn’t autobiographical,” Martino stated. “I have researched and talked to other cancer survivors to try and get the feeling of what other people have experienced.”

Martino initially developed the idea for the series in 2004 when he was struggling through his first bout with kidney cancer. “It was a very difficult decision to take some of my personal experiences and put them down on paper in order to entertain people and possibly allow them to have a glimpse into what some of us go through while battling this potentially deadly disease,” Martino explained. Needless to say while Titan’s story most assuredly does have some very serious aspects to it, it is still a very cool — and yes, even fun — superhero comicbook that is full of dire villains, giant mechas, as well as some truly great mythological creatures.

What Titan experiences is in Martino’s words, “What it feels like to be invulnerable, and then, suddenly never being able to feel that way again.” The Mighty Titan is suddenly tasked with not only having to be able to save the world; but needing to be able to save himself as well. According to Martino, the book explores themes of fear, loss, pain, and ultimately the perseverance of the hero himself due to courage and determination. Titan is a hero of great power and strength, but he is also cast as someone who reminds us that we all have great weaknesses, and that we all can be destroyed. Still Titan (and by extension, Martino) also provides us all with great hope. For it is when we feel at our weakest, when we’re not sure whether or not we can make it through our darkest hours, it is uplifting superhero tales like this one that remind us that we can be saved, and that hope is not lost.

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Characters, Story and Content of The Mighty Titan, Ripperman and Shadowflame are Trademark ™ & Copyright © 2014 & 2024 Joe Martino. The text to Funnybook City is Copyright © 2014 & 2024 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink. All rights reserved by their respective owners.

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Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s Mom & Pop grocery store. He began writing about comics in the early ‘80s and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s.

The Tale of the Multieyed Lady

So, lately we’ve been on something of a Kickstarter journey, in that we’ve discovered and backed several over the past year. While backing Kickstarter comics can be something of a mixed bag, we’ve been generally pleased with the comics we’ve acquired. To be sure. Most of the comics that we’ve backed were by creators known to us, every once in a while we come across a creator and comic that completely surprises us. Such is the case with The Multi-Eyed Lady. This eight-page B&W comic is about a young girl and her friends who rises to save their town.

The comic was created by Juan Espinosa’s 10 year old daughter, Grace. Juan Espinosa is the founder of Bearded Man Comics and creator of a number of comics, including Adventures of a System Admin, Hackerstrip, and El Galipote. Grace is his fifth grader daughter who is also passionate about comics, so much so that she determined to write her own, hence the birth of The Multi-Eyed Lady, which she produced with the help of Topan Prakasa who illustrated the comic.

The Multi-Eyed Lady is a superhero story centered around a diverse team of heroes which is led by Guadalupe, who has the ability to see everything around her the Multi-Eyed Lady and Sir Strong, her husband, James, who — as his name implies — has super strength. The pair are joined by Alan, their tech-savvy partner, who performs Overwatch duties for the team. May, a very skilled tracker, Edgar their weapons expert, and Mary who is an accomplished spy. Together they fight against the criminals in their neighborhood, one of them who is the evil Witch Maya. As it turns out, Maya, is May’s sister. Unfortunately, Maya has become corrupted by greed and power and turned against her sister.

The comic’s story begins with Guadalupe and James reflecting on their double lives as both a married couple with friends and families as well as superheroes. From there we are introduced to Alan who has created a device that will allow the team to be alerted to crimes and to track Maya’s malicious activities. As stated, this initial comic of Grace’s is a B&W 8 pager. The comic itself highlights themes of friendship and loyalty, while showing all the abilities and personalities of each team member.

The story, though simple, is well told, and the art is clean and crisp, rendering a fine first effort for Grace and Topan. For our own part, we stumbled across the Kickstarter completely by accident and was so tickled by the concept of a fifth, grader producing her own comic that we felt compelled to back the project. Having received the comic, we are very happy that we did, as it was a pure delight to read. As can be expected, the comic (the story of which is wrapped up in this initial issue) is the first installment of a longer, ongoing series. We certainly hope Grace experiences enough success with this first issue to continue her foray into the world of indie comics.

An interview with Guy Dorian, Sr.: The coming of COR!

Here is yet another older interview I did some years back that appeared on another web page with which I am no longer associated. It has been my intention to bring that older work here, and with this interview I have just one more article to bring over. anyway, here we go...

This is part two of a two-part interview with Guy Dorian, Sr. the First half  can be found here:

C.O.R. premiered at the New York Comic Con in 2016. where Guy Dorian, Sr., Ian Dorian, and Matthew Pallotta had giveaways of the Zero issues of both Law of Resistance and C.O.R. and were signing their books. Also present was Janine Fackque creator of Quandary.

Guy Dorian, Sr. is something of a Renaissance-level artist, he can draw, paint, watercolor, sculpt, build, write, and dance (he can’t sing). His his first comicbook work published at Marvel in New Warriors #48 (1994). Some of his other comic work has included UltraForce, Hari Kari, Bad Girls, Hakkiro Soul Quest, and many others. Not just making an impression on the comics themselves, Guy has worked on many trading card sets for both Marvel and DC Comics.

In addition to all of his comicbook work, Guy has built up his portfolio in a variety of different art fields, such as toy designs (for WWF/WWE), trading cards, coloring books, magazines, stickers, billboards, newspaper comic strip ads, and more, the list goes on and on. Beyond his artwork, Guy is also a sought-after lecturer, focusing on fine art as well on professional comicbook art. Currently he is working with the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center on big projects, as well as character development for Marvel Comics Avengers Assemble, and a self-published comic entitled COR (discussed here), that he is working on with his son (Guy Dorian, Jr.) and others.

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RJS: Tell me about your new project, COR.

GD, Sr: Well, COR is a project by myself and a company called PKMM Entertainment. I can tell you this character COR is something I’ve always wanted to do. He has the intelligence of the entire internet and intelligence of all those who are connected to the internet at his beck and call. He has translucent skin on parts of his body, that shows the red glow of his veins system. He’s a character who is flawed by his own birth, and by his own species to which he is the sole heir. This all occurs with the help of a woman he meets by the name of Anat.

He goes on a journey to ultimately discover where he came from, who he is, and why he is here. The book is written by the very capable and talented independent screen-writer, Guy Dorian Jr. (my son), illustrated by myself and inked by the phenomenal Bob Wiacek. Some of my good friends and fantastically talented icons of the comic industry are on board for collaboration on stories, pages, and covers of this great series. Some of those artists that I have the pleasure of working with are Sal Buscema (who took over as Guy’s inker for the rest of the entire series as well as on the other books on which Guy is working), Herb Trimpe (the zero issue has an article about Herb Trimpe and features one of the last illustrations Trimpe ever did), Paul Gulacy, Michael Golden, Rich Buckler, Larry Hama, Louise Simonson, Joe Sinnott, Neal Adams, as well as Janice Chiang on letters. And I can’t forget my son’s writing partner, Cody Ciezlekowski.

All of this is brought to you by the visionary named Matthew Pallotta. He is the executive vice-president of PKMM, and the executive editor and vice-president of PKMM Entertainment. Matthew is a visionary, and an incredible talent in the industry of electronics and soon to be of entertainment.

RJS: What prompted you to create this story?

GD, Sr: Nothing necessarily prompted me. My brain is always running at a thousand miles per second, I am always thinking of new intellectual properties, stories, characters, worlds, products and series. You name it, my brain never stops running, never stops creating, never stops thinking, never stops taking me somewhere to creation.

RJS: From what I already know about it, it seems to be a far cry from superhero stuff for which you are perhaps best known.

GD, Sr: It’s a collaboration originally with my son. We are both into fantasy and science fiction as well as some superhero ideals, ideas and characters. We started collaborating on projects and our thoughts came together to create something totally original. It can be considered a sci-fi fantasy, based around a hero. But make no mistake he is a superhero, just not in the same sense that we see men in tights. He’s a hero and anti-hero, but in the course of the story he’d be classified as a hero. I guess you’ll have to read the story to find out. As far as if it is more difficult, I guess I have to say everything is both easy and difficult because I never look at anything or any project or any story without trying to put my all into it. At various times, it is just both simple and extremely difficult.

RJS: Will this be a limited run series or do you intend for it to be an ongoing series?

GD, Sr: The story will be debut as a six-book miniseries, and then turn into its own full ongoing series.

RJS: Besides COR, do you have anything else that you have in the works you want to discuss?

GD, Sr: At the moment this book is everything, but I do have another major project I’m working on. That project is a sculpture of none other than Jack “King” Kirby, the greatest comicbook artist who ever lived. It will be a life-size sculpture and monument dedicated to his memory for his fans from all around the world. I have been involved with the Kirby Museum for quite some time now. In discussing, and going over this project a development that has come out of it is that I will be a guest speaker, doing a lecture and physically drawing about Jack Kirby’s art…why he drew what he drew…and that was true from the time he was an early professional all the way through to his greatest successes.

RJS: I noticed that Ian is also working on a new project and both of your projects are being pitched on the same website. Are you guys going to be self-publishing them together?

GD, Sr: My brother’s project is called Law of Resistance or Resistance. It is a story that was created by my brother, Ian and Jim Krueger. Our development of COR, was an influence on the creation of Ian and Jim’s character. Matthew Pallotta played his part, which was then developed by Ian and Jimmy and ultimately scripted by Jimmy. My project is called COR – Controlled Organic Robotics. I created the initial character from my son’s descriptions and writer became co-creator with me working and developing the story. He also has a partner who was involved in the writing and his name is Cody Ciezlekowski. The energy of creating this project is my favorite part of character creation, and I am very happy to be now working on the issues.

RJS: What other kinds of things do you think you’d like to do going forward?

GD, Sr: I’m pretty much doing them. My main thing right now is continuing to work with a great group of amazing iconic professionals as well as continuing work with my son on COR. The character of COR is just a blast to work on! The story, the characters, the energy out of the book… it’s just all me and just really who I am! He’s a science fiction, retro-dial…and yet a new creation that has gotten so much praise over the last few months. We haven’t even released the issues yet. The character that I have created, COR, has a mixture of Black Panther meets the Alien meets Machine Man meets Terminator…it’s just one of those types of characters that you know when you make it that clicks. A character that will stick, a character that will stay, the response by fans and by professionals alike has been overwhelming. It’s an honor to be able to be a creator, an illustrator, an artist, a sculptor,  a painter, and especially a comicbook artist! To just be involved in all these things in the industry in an artistic sense it’s really just the greatest thing. I absolutely love what I do and everything that is being done right now on these issues!

These novels which are first going to be a six-book series, and then a graphic novel and it will be continued as series of novels is all being brought together by the amazingly intelligent and charismatic mind of Matthew Pallotta. Matthew and PKMM put together this group of phenomenal talents in the comics industry to create PKMM Entertainment. Much like Steve Jobs, he has been involved in working with advanced technology solutions, and computers for many years. In his job, he has worked for the federal government for his entire life, creating and developing software solutions and his intellect has been so broad-based. He’s created so many things in that space, that he just could not be contained. He loves the comic industry, he loves the movie and game industries, he loves science fiction, fantasy, superheroes… you name it! He’s putting everything out there to make sure that this new company, PKMM entertainment is a viable working entertainment company that does things right, by using all the greatest talent that he can find on the planet.

I almost forgot to mention my brother is working on his project with anchors such as Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Texiera, Joe Weems, Matt “Batt” Banning, and many other extremely talented big wigs in the business. On my book, COR I have been working on the title in some capacity as anchors and pencil is collaborating with me are John Livesay, Bob Wiacek, Rich Buckler, Joseph Rubenstien, Herb Trimpe, Michael Golden, and the great Sal Buscema, as well as possibly Michael Kaluta, and a few more. And let’s not forget the great Janice Chiang on letters for both books.

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COR, and all artwork associated with the character, including COR logo is copyright © & TM 2015 & 2024 PKMM Entertainment/Guy Dorian, Sr. COR published by PKMM Entertainment. All rights reserved. All material relating to COR may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form

without the written consent of Guy Dorian & PKMM. All trademarks and logos are © copyrighted by their respective parties.

The text to Funnybook City is © 2015 & 2024 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink. All rights reserved.

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Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s grocery store. He has been writing about them in the early ‘80s, and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s. These days, much of his writing can be found here or on HubPages.com.

Guy Dorian, Sr. interview: The Marvel Years

Here is one of my older articles that originally appeared on a website with which I am no longer associated, hence I wanted to repost it here in my blog for all to see. This article is from 2016

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If you don’t know who Guy Dorian, Sr. is, then you simply  haven’t been paying attention. He had his first comic work published at Marvel Comics in New Warriors #48 (1994). Guy so impressed his editor, that it was just the start of his career at Marvel. He’s worked on Marvel Comics Presents, Daredevil, Night Thrasher, and many projects over the years. Some of his other comic work includes work on UltraForce, Hari Kari, Bad Girls, Hakkiro Soul Quest, and many others. Not just making an impression on the comics themselves, Guy has worked on many trading card sets for both Marvel and DC Comics.

In addition to all of his comicbook work, Guy has actually expanded beyond comics, and has built up his portfolio in a variety of different art fields, such as toy designs (for WWF/WWE), trading cards (again including for the WWF), coloring books, magazine covers, stickers, billboards, newspaper comic strip ads, and much more. Some of these other works include Hercules and Xena watch designs, character development for the Silver Surfer cartoon series, Star Wars Comics to Color and the list goes on and on.

Even beyond to his artwork, Guy is also a lecturer focusing on fine art as well on professional comicbook art, and is available for speaking engagements at businesses and corporations. Currently he is working closely with the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center on big projects (that he discusses in this interview), as well as character development for Marvel Comics Avengers Assemble, and a self-published comic that he is working on with his son (Guy Dorian, Jr.) and others.

We recently caught up with Guy and (finally) got the chance to talk to him about his very busy, very full schedule.

RJS: So when did you break into comics?

Guy Dorian, Sr: I broke into comics at the age of 22 almost 23. I had tried for about two and a half years to get into Marvel, with the help of my brother Ian, Mark Pacella, and Dan Panosian, as well as my wife’s willingness to wait, and also my aunt Trudy who helped me financially to go back and forth into New York.

Thanks to my brother’s connections with Mark Pacella, I became his assistant. When I met Dan Panosian both he and Mark brought me into Marvel…Dan took me into Marvel to see the editors. So after two-and-a-half years of trying to bring up samples into Marvel — which was a wonderful place to hang out back in those days — you could hang out in Marvel and talk to everyone and meet everyone; and I would do my samples right there at Marvel. The editor I had seen first was Ralph Macchio. He looked at my work and said it will take you about two-and-a-half-to-three years to get in; he was right on the money. Finally, after many years of struggle, with my wife and I eating peas out of a can for our lack of money, and many tears on the train ride home, I walked in to Rob Tokar’s office where he was doing New Warriors and showed him my samples. I went into his office he started to look at my work, and he got a phone call right then. He seemed to be on the phone and I didn’t want to interrupt him so I decided to leave thinking…“Oh well, I guess I won’t have a job again.” But as I was walking out he said, “Hey, what’s your schedule like? I think I have a job for you.” Just like that, I began my first job at Marvel.

Actually as I recall now my actual first work was through the Daredevil office with Editor Pat Garrahy. Pat was Mark’s editor, I believe, and said, “Hey, why don’t you do some samples of Daredevil…here’s a script.” It was a backup story. That was the first actual paid work I got — I got paid $50 per page for those pencils. He then bought a pinup of Daredevil from me but it was never published. He also bought a double-page splash pinup of the Fantastic Four. So that was really my first work. As I mentioned before, I started my work on I believe issue #48 of New Warriors, and Rob Tokar purchased a pin-up of Nova from me.

RJS: What was it about comics that drew you to them?

GD, Sr: At the age of maybe eight or nine my brother Ian and I saw comics on the stands and were amazed by them. Comics by Jack Kirby, Walter Simonson, Neal Adams, John Byrne, Michael Golden, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema — to name a few, had captured our attention. The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash — not to mention the cartoons and audio books that we purchased as well as toys. These things made us want to draw comicbooks. At a very early age my twin brother (Ian) and I studied from artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci, Albrecht Durer just to name a few. We were both sent to a gifted school and there we gained a lot of confidence that we could actually acquire those high heights of becoming professional artists.

RJS: You really have bounced around not only in the kinds of books you’ve done but the type of art you’ve done. Everything from comics to tour designs, to — as you told me at Winter Con; sculpting and landscapes — how do you explain that?

GD, Sr: Sr: Well, I bounced around because I consider myself an artist first not only in the field of comics but in many forms of fine art. I have always loved to draw paint, watercolor, sculpt, build, write, and dance. I’ve even done acting. I’ve worked on comicbooks, toys, games, movies, I’ve been printed in comic strips, coloring books, trading cards, toy boxes, t-shirts, calendars, you name it. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of commissions that have been spread all around the world from portrait art to paintings to pen and ink drawings of scenes, places, people, everything. Of all things I am most asked to draw its usually comicbook characters. I started out spreading my wings in the ‘90s while I was at Marvel and I spread into the toy companies such as Toy Biz, Courier International, and just toys as well as others. I worked on such things as The Tick, Pony Trails, The Three Stooges, Wind in the Willows, Hercules, Xena, Nerf Guns, Power Rangers, WWE (at that time WWF) figures and trading cards and any other toys I could work on.

RJS: Do you think that art is art and that it is something genetic or do you think that is a learned trait? I get that you can teach technique, but do you believe that some people are simply predisposed to be better at it than others?

GD, Sr: Well as far as art is concerned everyone can learn technique, whether or not they are good or bad, people can learn…well, at least the average person can learn how to use technique to make art that looks interesting. There are a lot of techniques that through practice people can use to do works of art that may seem to be okay to fantastic depending upon how well they learned the medium…How well they learned those techniques, but some people like myself have a different sense. Where we can just see art as design, structure, light and shadow, color atmosphere, texture, energy and feel it. See it and embody it, because it’s just how we see the world. Whether we never took one lesson or took a hundred thousand lessons, we would be able to produce artworks of high quality that are beyond what most people would normally be able to do. But if you asked me to sing I can’t do it. How lame.

RJS: Given that you seem to be doing all sorts of art these days is there any that you prefer more than others:

GD, Sr: No, there is no one type that I prefer over another. I prefer the challenge of creation, the challenge of inception, and understanding. I prefer the challenge of accomplishment and reaching a goal. I prefer to be tested, and I prefer to conquer and achieve. Whatever type or style of art or medium that is required, those are the factors that make me enjoy them equally no matter what they are.

RJS: Your brother, Ian is also a very talented artist in the same field of comics. Is there any rivalry, friendly or otherwise between you two?

GD, Sr: There is no rivalry between the two of us. We do try to influence each other to do better and push each other. We can work well together at times and other times we don’t work well at all. I would say that you know I started out as a professional when I was 22, my brother started out doing small parts of some of the projects that I had when I was younger and working in my early twenties. Ian went off to college to get his Master’s degree and become a professor, and became a professional stone carver, sculptor, as well as painter, illustrator…you name it he has the degree to prove it. So now that we’re both professional illustrators working in comics and for the same company! It is very special, and we actually bonded even closer because of that. We both worked on the 2015 Avengers Assemble calendar, but the one that has more of the buildings on it was done by my brother. We worked with Chris Sotomayor’s SotoColor on that and that was a fun job in some ways and in other ways it was very difficult. So we’ve worked on the Avengers calendar, commercial art that will be used for many things over the next few years on clothing; shirts, pants, shoes, books, hats, you name it…my brother was mostly the counselor and I was mostly the inker. Sometimes he did a little drawing on the computer and sometimes I felt that a little change of the figures in the illustration would improve the result. All in all, it was a fun gig in the end…and very rewarding to do that Avengers Assemble 2015 calendar.

RJS: Have the two of you worked on any projects together before in the past?

GD, Sr: Yes, we have. We have worked on different projects to help one another out at different times such as back a long time ago when I was working on toys for tour companies, (I had done many different things from many different companies) he had helped me with some scopes for Youngblood. He helped with trading cards for the WWF, which is now called the WWE. We have worked together on stories, some eight-page, some book length stories, that 2015 Avengers Assemble calendar, illustrations for consumer products, and animation as well as more projects that I cannot think of at the very moment.

RJS: Is there any existing character you’d like to work on that you haven’t already?

GD, Sr: There are several. My number one character that I’d like to work on would be The Incredible Hulk, others would be Dr. Strange, Man-Thing, Mister Miracle, Machine Man, Black Panther, possibly Spawn, as well as the X-Men… maybe Green Lantern. I have illustrated most of those characters on or in some capacity over the course of the 22 years as a professional. I have, I could say a lot of them were done on a trading cards as well as some paintings and such, but as far as full issues most of the main few that I mentioned in the beginning were my big hitters. Oh, I forgot to mention of course the Fantastic Four! I did come up with a story based on one of the characters of the Fantastic Four that I would like to pitch to Marvel. I do have a great writer involved — a very famous one — to help me pitch that.

This is part one of a two-part interview with Guy Dorian, Sr. the second half of the interview can be found here.

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The Avengers, all members of the Avengers, The New Warriors, Daredevil, and all artwork associated with those character are © & TM 2015 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.

Coping with the New Activism poster  © & TM 2015 PKMM Entertainment/Guy Dorian.

Funnybook City, and this article is © 2015 & 2024 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink. All rights reserved.

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Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s “Mom & Pop” grocery store. He has been writing about them in the early ‘80s, and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s. These days, much of his writing can be found on Hubpages.com/@robertjsodaro.